A Call for a New Media Strategy
We’re here tonight to recognize a “Jeopardy!” champion, a former Secular Student Alliance chairman, and an educator. He is the creator of the best acronym I have ever seen in the secular space, Students WithOut Religious Dogma or SWORD. He is also a really nice guy for someone who once sold his soul on eBay.
Hemant Mehta, known to readers and listeners as “The Friendly Atheist”, is this year’s recipient of the Humanist Media Award. He joins past recipients like The Onion and Young Turks founder Cenk Uygur. We give this award to creators who tell stories that align with humanist values, demonstrate a commitment to truth, and are willing to humanize others. Hemant’s hundreds of thousands of followers make him arguably the country’s most followed news source reporting specifically on issues that matter to the secular community.
In a time when the religious right is demanding that we retreat into the shadows and questioning our status as real Americans, Hemant does the work of telling our stories for the world to see. He publishes thoughtfully researched and hard-hitting pieces on a wide range of topics. He covers everything from the overreach of the Trump administration and Christian Nationalist legislation to demographic research on the future of secularism in America and the arrests of right-wing religious leaders for child sexual abuse.
He is a journalist in the best sense. He tells the stories that need to be told because they matter for our rights and recognition, even if they don’t lead to corporate sponsorship. He also has a unique ability to write about charged issues with a deeply held point of view while still holding the humanity of the other side close to his heart. He delivers searing commentary without sacrificing the facts. His writing reminds us that we can steadfastly oppose Christian Nationalism and religious oppression without resorting to tactics of hate and bullying. “The Friendly Atheist” isn’t just a brand; it’s a statement that says we can demand better without dehumanization.
Hemant helps all of us see what’s on the horizon, and he represents the positive possibility and warmth of the humanist community to the many religious people who follow him because they, too, care about church-state separation. We need more creators like Hemant, more leaders like Hemant, and more humanists like Hemant. It is a profound honor to present the Humanist Media Award to a national media figure and a great friend, Hemant Mehta.
HEMANT MEHTA: Thank you. That was such a nice introduction, and my family will be laughing at me later. I am deeply honored to receive this award; it really means a lot.
They asked me to give a 10 to 15-minute speech, so of course I wrote about an hour’s worth of stuff, and then I spent the past week trying to figure out what to cut. At some point, just cut me off. I want to make a pitch not just to the organizations here, but to the people in this room who care deeply about this movement at large. You are people who donate to this movement. I want to make an argument for a different way you can get involved without sacrificing the fact that you should also give to the American Humanist Association.
Do you all remember Air America, the radio station from about 20 years ago? It was trying to give progressive voices a space in the world of talk radio, which is pretty much dominated by right-wing voices. It eventually filed for bankruptcy and doesn’t exist anymore. But they had a really interesting idea: there were people already doing the work and spreading the message that we value, so why not invest in their voices and give them a platform?
Even though the station folded, they brought on people like Al Franken, who went on to become a senator; Marc Maron, a very influential comedian and podcaster; and Rachel Maddow. The lesson is, there is value in promoting people who are already doing the work that all of us care about. If you invest in those voices, who knows where they will go later?
Let me remind you of the last presidential election. One of the most potent forces for spreading the conservative message was not Fox News, but podcasters. They reached a lot of people who may be apolitical, because the hosts had already cultivated their own brand. The fact that right-wing politicians were willing to tap into that to spread their own message worked to their benefit. A lot of those voices on the right did not get there magically; they had sponsors and investors who helped them build their brand. Investors saw something in them and helped them build an audience. This is something that progressive, humanist people have generally not done well.
There is a joke that has some truth to it: conservative content creators have millionaire backers, while liberal content creators have a total of $3 that we donate to each other on Patreon in a never-ending cycle. I’m not entirely exaggerating here. The Daily Caller, founded by Tucker Carlson, launched with a $3 million donation. Breitbart News got an $11 million endowment in 2011. That funding paid for many writers and staffers who make up the conservative media ecosystem today, as well as the staffs of some of the most powerful lawmakers.
So why am I telling you all this? If one of the main goals of the American Humanist Association is to spread humanism and humanist values, we as an organization–and as individuals who care about these issues–need to do more to cultivate and invest in the people who are already doing that work well. They have built their own audiences and are super creative, but they spend so much of their time trying to make ends meet.
We are starting to do this, and I’ll explain how in a bit. I have been working within this movement for over two decades, and I’ve met a lot of people in the nonprofit world who became staffers or board members because they cared about this movement. A lot of them have since gone on to work for other organizations that they are passionate about, like LGBTQ or reproductive rights organizations. The thing is, we’re not doing this for money, but we also can’t expect the people doing this work to just do it for charity either.
Over the past few weeks, I spoke to many people who create content through videos, podcasts, blogs, and TikTok. Many of them have other day jobs. Only a few do this full-time, and even then, it’s a struggle because they are constantly trying to stay afloat. If you appreciate what I’ve done, I’m begging you to pay it forward. I want to create an environment where more people can do this work because that environment doesn’t exist right now.
I spoke to a YouTube creator who makes videos that people in this room would love, and more importantly, videos that people not in this room would also love. One of them was about how, after the Great Depression, big corporations spread bigotry against atheists to convince Christians to vote for ultra-conservative politicians. It was a lot of research, a compelling final product, and it got so many views online. That is the kind of video that breaks outside our circles. Yet, even after considering YouTube ad revenue, he lost money on that video. I ask you: what’s the incentive for that person to keep making content like that if it is that hard to even break even?
What if, in the middle of that video, he said something like this: “This video is brought to you by the American Humanist Association. They didn’t have any input into the content, but they support the work I do, and I support the work they do.” I promise you, every other type of video like that does exactly that, but it is for random sponsorships like Stamps.com. We could be keeping that kind of thing within our circles. I’m not saying you should give creators a giant pile of cash with no strings attached. But we could be doing a lot more to help them spread this message.
For years, we’ve talked about how the prototypical atheist advocate is an older white guy from academia. One way to change that is by directly supporting women, LGBTQ people, and people of color who are making great content. The obvious rebuttal is that we don’t have the money to pull this off; there is too much risk involved with funding creators when we don’t get to control their message. But even when we have money, we spend it in weird ways.
Let me give you an example. There is an organization that has a yearly contest for high school seniors to create a 30-second video promoting science. The winner gets a $10,000 scholarship. The donor has spent over $1.25 million funding this over several years. Don’t tell me we have no money in the movement. I looked at the winning videos from the last four years, and all of them combined have a grand total of under 10,000 views. That means nobody is watching them, much less spreading them. Those videos cost the group $40,000.
Meanwhile, there are people on YouTube and TikTok who make extraordinary science content but cannot get the funding they need to make more videos and grow their platforms. Do you know how many creators, podcasters, and writers you could sponsor for that kind of money with a far greater reach? They are already doing it, and they are doing it well. They do it for fun, but they shouldn’t just be doing it for fun. We could fix this, and we should be doing that.
We need to find a media strategy that rewards the people who are spreading the ideas we care about. Staffers have an obligation to promote the group, but outside creators do not; they can do whatever they want, and that might be more effective. As media critic Parker Molloy says, “Progressive donors need to take a page from the conservative playbook by making long-term, substantial investments in digital media with fewer strings attached”.
I’ll close with a couple of quick stories of this working really well, and they both involve my friend Drew McCoy, who is on YouTube as Genetically Modified Skeptic. As I was preparing this speech, I was watching his most recent video about how misinformation from Joe Rogan directly impacted Texas public schools. In the middle of the video, he broke in to say how the Freedom From Religion Foundation was crucial to helping people fight back against the thing he was talking about. He said they literally sponsored his video on that topic. They worked out a plan that was a win-win for both sides. He used their material to inform his video, and his videos promoted the work they do.
The work we do can’t happen without the work that groups like the AHA do day in and day out. In order to spread your message and remain relevant, we need people who share our values to help out. So I urge you all to make this a priority. Create the guidelines you need, set aside the funding, and cultivate donors who want to see that happen. Seek out the talent you admire and give them the tools they need to make it happen. I promise you, the other side is doing this because they know how powerful it is. Thank you so much for this award.